No Budget for PR? Here’s what you can do… 

Good quality PR is hard to achieve, which is why some companies charge high rates, and hiring an in-house PR expert isn’t always attainable too, especially when your business is starting out.

If you don’t have a budget for PR right now, don’t feel like your hands are tied. There are some things that you can do to help boost the awareness of your business, you just have to be creative, patient and persistent!

We have put together 5 tips on how you can create media coverage and backlinks for your website or business without having to spend the big bucks on an agency till you are ready.

If you receive any coverage online or in newspapers, make sure you SHARE the good news.

Social media is the perfect platform to share your coverage with followers, or potential followers! Receiving a review or brand mention online is the perfect piece of social media content, free marketing!

You should be looking to share the feature for a few months, and not just on your socials. It should go on your website too! Set up a ‘featured in’ page or toggle on your homepage to let your customers and clients know you’re being noticed.

Encourage your employees to do the same too, ask them to share the features on their socials to reach a broader audience.

When you include the coverage on your website, why not write up a blog post, explain a bit more about what you do and get those all-important backlinks in to boost SEO. By writing up an article on your site you can tag the journalist in from your coverage, reach out on socials and thank them for spreading the word!

As Featured In…

Including an area or page on your website which shares any featured articles is very important. It let’s not only your clients know that you are being talked about, but other press.

Within this page, we recommend you include a few things.

• Links to any press releases that you have sent out to media.
• Backlinks to any articles in which you are mentioned.
• A press contact on your website.

Including a press contact on your website is important. The more people here about you, the more they will want to write about you! Make sure that your press contact is clearly shown on your site. It will allow journalists to contact you and get more information easily. The second you send them on a wild goose chase for a contact, they will lose interest.

Make sure that you keep the ‘as featured in’ page up to date as much as you can, people don’t want to read news from 2015 when it’s 2022!

Connections

There are ways in which you can connect and network with journalists and key employees online that don’t cost a penny. LinkedIn is a great tool to utilise. This networking app allows you to share media such as documents, articles, images, videos and even presentation to your profile.

Build up key connections with journalists yourself too, if you have received coverage from a complimentary author on a publication, why not reach out to thank them and offer to send them more, relevant (important word here) information. And keep that connection going, build on relationships with as many journalists and influential writers as you can.

Become the expert

If you have read any article shared online, you will see that there is often a quote or comment from an expert in the field to add a bit of substance to a post. And you will notice that they will always mention the expert’s business name! This is a fantastic opportunity to achieve free marketing or even a backlink for your SEO!

Reach out to industry relevant writers, and offer to comment on any future articles that they are working providing them with an expert opinion.

Newsjacking

A simple yet effective technique that anyone can do online via their social media. Twitter is particularly useful for this PR boosting technique. Follow relevant journalists or news pages within your industry, and comment on articles that they share. You are opening up a dialogue and creating brand awareness in a meaningful way.

For more articles like ‘No budget for PR’, check out our PR Tips page where our authors share more advice on the industry.